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If there is a relevant book you would like to suggest that forum members read together please private message Gavin who will create a subforum for it. Thereafter you're free to create your own introduction (in which you might suggest target dates), topics for each chapter and anything else.

A classic of it's time by one of America's leading conservative philosophers.

It traces a path from the change to nominalism as a guiding precept of reality in the earlier medieval period. A path which slowly undermined the vital metaphysic of eternal truth guarded by the ancients, and led inexorably to the adoption of relativism as a catalyst for the catastrophes of modern man, catastrophes which are the result of unintelligent thinking. Amongst which he posits the spread of the 'spoilt child' psychology and cultural fragmentation that characterises the behaviour of 'mass man' within industrialised society in the west. Although written in the immediate aftermath of WW2, it is astoundingly prescient in it's observations of potential behaviour patterns in a decadent society, and seems even more relevant today.

I would also recommend his collected shorter writings entitled 'In Defense of Tradition' (Liberty Fund Indianapolis).

A fairly capacious volume, but full of eminently wise and succinct essays on everything from education, politics, Conservatism, intellectuals (and what they are really for) to rhetoric, cultural freedom and history.

I am currently listening to Mark Steyn read his book After America and it's really great. So many sentences are quotable I hardly know where to start - virtually the whole book is.

If you like Darlymple, try this - it seems to me an important book and covers many of the topics and incidents we have discussed on this forum. It's a serious book, yet funny too - I particularly recommend listening to Mr Steyn reading it himself.

They purport to be a series of interviews of German soldiers who fought on the invasion beaches on D-Day in 1944. The interviews were conducted by the grandfather of the author in 1954, when he was trying to track down certain soldiers he had interviewed just before the invasion in 1944.

They are a very interesting read, since most books on D-Day focus mostly on Allied accounts. I've read several books whose only perspective from the German side was taken from the same source (Hein Severloh)

That said, some questions have been raised about their authenticity. I wonder if any of the German speakers on the forum (I'm looking at you, Yessica :) have heard of these books. They exist only in ebook form, and amazon.de seems to have the English edition, rather than a German one, which is surprising.

I'm in the process of re-reading some of Theodore Dalrymple's early travel books, such as Fool or Physician, Coups and Cocaine, Zanzibar to Timbuktu, and Sweet Waist of America. (I read them for the first time about ten years ago). They really are very good indeed, perhaps even better than his more recent work. It's sometimes difficult to believe he was only in his 30s when he wrote them. I believe they're rather expensive to buy in traditional book form because the original print-run was rather limited, but most of them have recently been made available at the Kindle Store at much more reasonable prices.

Andy JS wrote:I'm in the process of re-reading some of Theodore Dalrymple's early travel books, such as Fool or Physician, Coups and Cocaine, Zanzibar to Timbuktu, and Sweet Waist of America. (I read them for the first time about ten years ago). They really are very good indeed, perhaps even better than his more recent work. It's sometimes difficult to believe he was only in his 30s when he wrote them. I believe they're rather expensive to buy in traditional book form because the original print-run was rather limited, but most of them have recently been made available at the Kindle Store at much more reasonable prices.

I recently read The Silence of Our Friends by Ed West and thought it was very good (and is short, great for those with limited time).

If you have more time, may I also recommend The Myth of the Andalusian Paradise by Dario Fernandez Morera? It's refreshingly anti-established (namely, lefty) school of thought on Muslim-controlled Spain.

Next, White Gold by Giles Milton. Another topic of history (white Europeans kidnapped and forced into slavery) that is conveniently ignored by most academics and schools, and therefore, unknown by most people.

I've been reading reviews of his books too but haven't read any of them yet. Several, including the ones you mention, are on my list - must take a look some time... Apparently he has just written his first fiction novel too.

I'm reading Theodore Dalrymple's book "The Wilder Shores Of Marx" once again, and after reading the chapter on North Korea (which is probably the most interesting) I decided to see if there was any footage on YouTube of the 1989 World Festival of Youth and Students which is the event that he was attending and, to my surprise, there is: